Home Is A Distant Dream
by Lily Zen
Summary: Prequel to The Ocean Is Home To Sirens. Jay-centric. Wherein it is revealed how Jay came to work for Division. OMC/OFC. 2/2.
1. Part One

Home Is A Distant Dream

Part One

Fandom: Push

Pairing: OMC/OFC

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: swearing…

Archive: Ask

Author: Lily Zen

Notes: This is kind of a sequel/prequel to The Ocean Is Home To Sirens. It's definitely in the same 'verse, except it focuses on my original character from the aforementioned story, Jay. I told you I thought he was interesting, remember? Well, I wanted to explore him a bit. This takes place about one year prior to The Ocean Is Home To Sirens and All Water Leads To The Ocean.

Disclaimer: Push does not belong to me. Jay does. _Inherit the Wind_ is not mine. It's a really good play about a trial that took place in the Bible Belt arguing about teaching the theory of evolution in schools.

* * *

Jay, or rather Jason Walsh, was a fourth-generation telepath, though they were also called Readers due to the simple fact that they read minds, not altered them. It was an important distinction from the other class of telepaths, the Pushers, and sometimes the only thing that saved Jay from being hated and feared like the category two telepaths. Of course, back when Jay's great-grandfather had survived the Holocaust, they had all been lumped together. Information on psychic abilities was scarce and the possibilities were just beginning to be explored. Jason's great-grandfather had been a first-generation Reader, or at least the first generation that had been recorded in his family, and he had passed the trait on through his daughter, who had then passed it on through her twin daughters, one of whom, Kara, had passed it onto Jason. The other, Jocelyn, had been taken by Division as an adolescent and never seen again. Kara, Jason's mother, had told him that Jocelyn's gift had matured early and been out of control. For her own safety, Division had taken Jocelyn away.

Though his mother rarely spoke of it, Jason knew that Kara still felt the ache of her missing sibling even after all those years. It showed in little things, like the similarity of his name to his absent aunt's, and the fact that his mother had gone to work for Division of her own volition. He didn't know how she felt about them or what she thought of their policies—most Readers developed strong mental shields early in their lives to keep from going mad under a constant deluge of others' thoughts; those same shields also kept out other Readers and to a certain extent, Pushers. Whether or not she truly believed that Division was doing the right thing was unknown to him. Maybe she was looking for Jocelyn; maybe she was truly grateful to Division for saving her sister. Jay had no idea. His mother had always been a mystery to him in a great library full of open books.

What Jason did know was that Division was going to be a constant presence in his life whether he wanted them to be or not. One way or another, he would be theirs. Either he would be taken like his aunt had been, or he could go willingly and lick their boots for a few years until he'd earned his freedom. With a mother who may or may not have been a loyal Division dog, was it any wonder that he'd heeled without being told to do so?

They had first come around when Jason was ten. Kara's partner, an older man with graying hair at his temples—Warren, Warrick, Walrick?—and a younger black man with a shaved head who stared so intently that it made Jason fidget in his seat and look at him only peripherally. They had brought with them a machine that spit out white ticker tape from one side and stuck things on his head with little wires on them that connected him to the machine. Then he took a test in a booklet like they sometimes did at school, and the men oohed and aahed over whatever the little slip of paper told them. Jason knew he was doomed. They would be back for him someday.

The thing about telepathy was that it was an umbrella concept. Under that umbrella, there were several sub-categories. The first were Readers, true telepaths who did nothing but read thoughts. The second were Pushers, those that manipulated thoughts. For some reason, category two telepaths were far more commonplace than category one telepaths. It probably had something to do with the fact that most Readers did not live past early adulthood. The suicide rate amongst Readers was the second-highest among psychics in the world; Watchers were first. There was also a third category of telepath, but one that was almost always discounted: Sleepers. Those were telepaths who could only enter another person's mind when both the intended victim and psychic were asleep. Oftentimes, physical skin-to-skin contact was required to make the connection, though the stronger Sleepers could sometimes make the connection without it using a technique similar to lucid dreaming. Out of the categories of telepaths, Sleepers were considered the weakest and least useful, and were the highest in number amongst telepaths. That was probably due to the fact that their ability had such limitations to it, so the rate of madness among Sleepers was greatly decreased. Readers were the rarest, the most prized, and so Jason knew that Division would be watching him very closely.

Over the years, he was tested twice more, once at fourteen and once at seventeen. Six months before his high school graduation, Jason was offered a position as a Division agent.

Even though he had known it was coming, Jay hesitated. He was leery of Division, mindful of the times he'd caught his grandmother crying over a faded photograph of two twin girls. Once, his nana had gotten drunk during Passover and begun yelling about how his grandfather had let them take her. Grandpa had quickly shushed her and shooed her off to bed for the night, saying that she was going senile. Jay didn't know if that was true, but the incidents had stuck with him none the less and shown him that not everything was as it seemed, that people lied and told half-truths, and the only thing that was real was what he could Read for himself.

Two months later, he met Taylor on a class field trip at the art museum. He was sitting on a bench in one of the little off-shoots of the main floor. The glass cases were filled with old china from different periods, and the lighting was rather low to preserve the delicate materials. Jay had chosen it because the area was relatively devoid of other people. His peers wanted to look at more exciting things than old dishes and the chaperones stayed with the larger volumes of kids, so Jay could sit by himself in the quiet, dim room and do whatever he wanted. He had his compact laptop in his hands when the girl walked in the room.

She had on faded ripped-up skinny jeans that still managed to drag on the floor, and one of those white vintage tees that clearly showed the lacy, bright yellow straps of her bra and a black tube top. Her scuffed Converses squeaked a little as she stumbled over the slight lip on the floor. Jay had looked up then, startled by the noise, and caught sight of a cute little girl butt as she bent close to one of the cases and a long tail of wavy, red hair that reminded him of watching _Who Framed Roger Rabbit_ as a kid.

"It's kind of cool, huh?" Her voice broke into his ogling, "The idea that they kept all of this old stuff, these extravagant plates that people used to eat off of and discard, and now we call it art. Can you imagine eating a pop-tart off of this? Decadent." She had a slight accent, one that he couldn't place, and she spoke like she was more educated than she looked or had been at one time.

When she turned to him and seemed to be waiting for a response, Jason found himself shrugging. "I guess," he said uncertainly, caught up in trying to figure out what color her eyes were behind the lenses of her glasses—the black plastic frames that he'd noticed were really popular with the trendier kids at school—and why he was only picking up bits and pieces of her thoughts, like a radio station that faded in and out.

Her eyebrow lifted behind long, shaggy bangs, a moment before she rolled her eyes. "You guess? Kid, you better learn to use your brain to do more than just 'guess' if you want to survive this shitty world." Her stance shifted, hip cocked to the side, and a wallet chain swung slightly and settled. Jay held the power button on his computer and shut it off, then tucked it back into his backpack as he stood, faking nonchalance. He was growing suspicious of this girl, a tiny little slip of a thing who stood cockily and spouted off mysterious crap at him.

"You think?" Jay responded with his eyes fixed on the gold plate in the display case, knowing they were dilated to pinpricks, flickering back and forth very much like he was dreaming with his eyes open. He focused all his talent on Reading the girl, trying to break through whatever mental barrier she had erected. Sifting through her mind was like driving down a foggy road late at night. He could only see what his lights focused on and his intense focus, his brights, for lack of a better term, just seemed to make it harder to see until he was panicking slightly in the car, praying that he wasn't about to hit something or drive into a ditch.

When Jay came back to himself, he was on one knee in the dimly lit china room, and the redheaded girl was crouched with him and had her hands wrapped around his arm, like she'd grabbed him to slow his fall. Her eyes were wide, showing a rim of white around pale, grayish green irises, and her plump lips were slightly parted as her tongue licked them nervously. "Jesus, kid, what the fuck? You shouldn't have done that. Oh my god, why didn't they tell me you were a paranoid little bastard? Are you okay?"

Jay was staring at her, he knew he was but couldn't seem to help it, his mind still a little slow from the mental exertion. He was having a hard time processing her words. Finally, he just settled for nodding his head, then shaking it when his blonde hair slid into his eyes. He needed a haircut, but he kept forgetting.

"Are you really?" she asked, then thought, _How many fingers am I holding up?_

He heard it clear as day and said out loud, "You're not holding up any. You've got your hands on my arm."

The girl laughed, patted him, and released her grip. "That I do." Then her mind went back to that mental static before Jason could get a clear Read on her. "I'm Taylor," she said, "Sorry I scared you."

"You didn't scare me," Jay responded, automatically defensive.

Taylor snorted derisively and drawled, "Sure, I didn't. Look, why don't we sit down on that bench over there and chat? I'm not here to hurt you. I just want to talk." Jay stood up obligingly then, and Taylor followed him over to his bench, hovering a little anxiously until he sat down. "Sorry," she said again, "They don't usually send me for this kind of stuff. I'm not very good at it, but you're being Watched by Division. The only way we could make contact with you was through a Shadow. I'm a Shadow, by the way." The girl plopped down onto the bench next to him and braced herself on either side with her palms flat on the seat slightly behind her.

That explained a lot. Jason had heard of Shadows before. They were psychics whose specialty was shadowing a certain area around them from Sniffs. The larger the area, the more powerful the Shadow, and the most powerful ones could even guard against Watchers and apparently Readers as well to a certain extent. (Later on, in his Division agent training, Jay would find out that they called psychics with this high level of ability 'alphas.') Judging from that little demo of her ability, Taylor was a frighteningly powerful Shadow, which explained why she wasn't locked up in a Division holding cell. They couldn't catch what they couldn't find.

Shadows, like Readers, were a part of their own branch of psychics referred to as nulls. The term was employed for any psychic whose ability was to negate another psychic's. Walls, Negs, and Takers were all types of nulls, cousins of Shadows. Walls specifically dealt with telepathy; Negs knocked out any sort of physical manifestation of psychic ability including Moving, Shifting, and Stitching; Takers were psychics who absorbed other psychics' powers through physical touch for a certain period of time. However, Shadows were considered the cream of the crop, because they could turn their ability off if they wanted to. The others had no such control over it.

"Oh, okay," Jason said, "So you're Taylor and you're a Shadow, and they don't usually send you for this kind of stuff. What stuff? What are you talking about? Who are they? Not Division."

"Obviously," Taylor replied smartly, "Not even close. I help out some people who are trying to find ways to weaken and-slash-or eliminate the Division so that psychics can be safe again, because let's face it, we're not. As things currently stand, you either submit to Division or you end up on the lam."

Jay's brown eyes flicked up and met her green ones. "I'm not on the lam," he stated unnecessarily.

The redhead shrugged a slender shoulder. "Not yet, but you're thinking about it. We've got our own Watchers, you know. Whether you realize it or not, Jason, you're at a crossroads in your life. What you choose to do here is a path that you can never go back from. On the one hand, you take the job and become a Division dog just like your mom, working for the government in whatever capacity they dictate. On the other, you can disappear and pray that they aren't too interested in one lone Reader. They'll find you eventually, you know, because Readers are rare and you've shown exceptional talent. I'm here to offer you a few more options." She smiled at him and it was soft and kind, different from her earlier abrasiveness.

"I'm listening."

That pink tongue darted out again and wet her lips, and Jason was momentarily distracted by it. Her lips curved up into a grin when she noticed and had to clear her throat a little to get him to look up at her face again. "We can offer you a life with us. Relocation. Safety. A Shadow to keep you off the grid for as long as you like."

Frowning, Jay asked, "What's the catch?"

"No catch," she said, "The safe house is totally free. As long as you stay there, you're fine. No guarantees if you choose to leave though."

"But…?" he prompted impatiently.

Taylor chuckled. "Really, it's free. You don't have to…to pay us or work for us or with us or anything. We just want to keep people from getting swallowed up by Division. There is another option though, but that's only if you're ready and willing."

Shrugging his shoulders in his striped button-down shirt, Jay asked, "So what is it?"

The girl laughed and tossed her head back, staring up at the ceiling. "I can't believe I'm actually saying this. I laughed in their faces when they told me to ask you. It sounds so stupid." Jay made an impatient hand gesture for her to get on with it, and watched as she rolled her eyes again. "Be a double agent. Our double agent."

"What?" he squeaked embarrassingly, and then ground his teeth in annoyance as his voice cracked a little.

Taylor chuckled again. "See? Crazy, right? They want you to like…go work for Division, do your time, and feed us info on the outside. It's stupid. Reckless. You're just a kid. I can't believe they would ask that of you." They were both silent for a long moment, and she stretched out her legs in front of her, crossed them at the ankles.

"How old are _you_?" Jay asked suddenly, looking at her clothing as well as her physical build—which was petite and slender, and he had the idle thought that they'd look good together, except she dressed like an indie kid and those kinds of girls never went for Jason; he was too quiet, too much of a loner, too busy worried about Division to care about things like what was popular; his mom bought his shirts and that was fine because Jay had better things to do than go shopping—and her young, pale face, unblemished except for a brown freckle near the corner of her mouth like Marilyn Monroe.

"Twenty," she replied casually, staring fixedly at a small white teacup with a blue painting on it, "How about you?"

"Eighteen," Jason said and felt heavily offended. Taylor spoke like she was a million years older than him and he was just a pup who'd barely opened his eyes yet.

"Yeah? Sorry, you looked younger to me. My bad." Again, Taylor's voice was deliberately cool, her feet tick-tocking back and forth to some unheard beat. "Look," she said and turned to face Jason abruptly, "I've got to go. If I stay too long, the Watchers might get suspicious. If you want to get a hold of me, go to Fixx. It's a coffee shop on 8th. On the back wall, there are a whole bunch of fix-up ads, y'know, classifieds? Leave a message with the barista for mine. You'll know which one it is. Oh, and get rid of that shirt. I'm not getting scooped up because you leave your dirty laundry on the floor. Sorry for all this cloak and dagger shit." She shrugged apologetically, looking sheepish.

"It's okay," he replied while Taylor stood up and left the room with a soft smile and a jaunty wave. "See you around, Jason," was her parting shot before that tail of flame-red hair disappeared around the corner.

For the next week, Jay was constantly distracted by his thoughts and even more distracted with keeping his thoughts a secret from his mother. Kara had returned from work the day of his field trip and on his way up the stairs, stopped him with, "What'd you do today?" Her voice was casual enough, and she was sifting through the mail absently, not even bothering to look at him. Except her pupils were dilated and normally Kara would never ask him such a pointless question. More often than not, they lived as two roommates with separate lives rather than a mother and son—his father had never been in the picture. Jason didn't even know his name. Quickly, Jason thought of nothing but innocuous things and concentrated on erecting a strong mental barrier, the one that kept out the thoughts of others in a crowded room. Division really was Watching him, and clearly they'd instructed his mother to ask about his brief disappearance. Or maybe he was just being paranoid. Either way, it was better just to keep her out.

"Field trip," he called as he pounded up the stairs to his room. After that, he was more cautious about his shielding, making sure that everything stayed safe, walled-up, even though behind his shields he was busily analyzing all of his information on Division and what Taylor, the mysterious girl from the museum, had said to him.

On Saturday, he finally caved and drove to Fixx. The coffee house was downtown in one of the trendier districts. It was fairly close to the college campus, so he would blend in there and smelled delicious. They had a huge display of whole coffee beans like at the grocery store and a self-serve station of bags with a heavy-looking grinder on it. The barista was a woman in her early thirties or forties—Jay was bad with ages, since most adults looked the same to him—who smiled at him when he walked in the door and ordered a large flavored coffee.

Then the blonde kid took a seat near the wall proudly labeled Fixx-Ups and started reading the fluttering sheets of paper tacked up there. It was fairly easy to find Taylor's. There was a number across the top, like all of the ads, and written in bold print at the top, it said "Fiery Redhead Seeks Skinny Geek." He went on to read about how she liked eating off of decadent plates and played a game called Cloak and Dagger. Her biggest fault was that she had strong shields that took awhile to break through. The paper claimed she was looking for "a skinny dude who liked to read a lot and maybe play some games." There was a winking face coyly doodled after.

Jay was chuckling to himself as he drank his coffee, and then after he went back up to the register and asked how to go about contacting someone on the board. The barista handed him a blank copy of the classified sheet and clean sheet of paper. "Fill that out," she said, "And I'll put it up. Then write the number of the person you want to contact on the top of the blank paper, and a message below. Sign it with your number. When you're done, bring both sheets up here. I'll make sure she gets the message. Check back in a week for any messages using your number, okay, hun?" The woman smiled kindly and gave him a pen, and Jason smiled back as he walked away, holding his blank classified ad.

He filled it out, being honest mostly because he was impatient and just wanted to get it over with, and then wrote Taylor a simple note that read 'Can we talk?'

A week later, Jason stopped in again and retrieved a written response that stated 'Wednesday 4 P.M.' So at the appointed date and time, he showed up and met Taylor at the coffee house.

Jason saw her before he even walked in the door. It was impossible to miss that flame-red hair, loose that time and longer than it had looked in the ponytail. There was a bit of curl to it mostly at the ends, like the sheer length of her hair pulled the rest of the bounce right out of it. She was sitting at a table tucked into a corner near the emergency exit, turning the pages of some slim paperback in her hands. Jay was wearing a pair of jeans with his sneakers, and a dark gray sweater over a white t-shirt. It was the closest he got to looking trendy and alternative, blending in a little easier with the college crowd.

The girl at the register was someone he hadn't seen before, but when he took a brief second to Read her, he didn't find anything suspicious. So the blonde haired psychic ordered a large coffee and a delicious looking pastry, carefully balancing both as he skirted around tables and book-bags to get to the redhead in the corner.

Clearing his throat to announce his arrival, Jason found himself speared by green eyes that flicked up from what he could see now was a copy of _Inherit the Wind_. The corners of her eyes crinkled, framed by dark lashes, and when she lowered her book Jason saw that Taylor was smiling. "Hi, Jason," she said, "Have a seat. It's good to see you again."

"Hey," Jay responded as he smiled back involuntarily and set his things down on the table. He caught a glimpse of bare legs as Taylor shifted under the table and crossed her legs. She was wearing a thin gray hoodie over some sort of many-layered shirt combo and a black pencil skirt. The Converses topped off the ensemble and Jason had a hunch that the redheaded Shadow wore those damn shoes three-hundred and sixty-two days of the year. He let his backpack fall to the floor and took the seat across from Taylor without comment.

She dog-eared her page and set the slender volume aside, sipping from an oversized mug of what smelled like some kind of tea. "So…" Taylor began, "I guess you had a chance to think."

"Ah, yeah," Jason hedged, looking around the crowded coffee shop, "Are you sure it's okay to talk here?"

"Better here than some place secluded," she told him, "Look around, no one's paying attention to us. They're all a bunch of self-absorbed little pricks, talking about how the government's fucked up, man, like they have any idea, and their latest plans for going green or vegan or whatever the cause of the day is." Taylor rolled her eyes, then sneered just a little bit. "Morons." Abruptly, her lips curved upward again. "Besides, the crowd is good. It provides a nice cover for you. Are you going to eat that?"

Jay glanced down at his apple strudel, faintly surprised because he'd completely forgotten about it, then he looked up at Taylor, noting the slightly bruised look under her eyes and her almost waifish appearance. He hadn't noticed it in the dim museum lighting, but it seemed like maybe she was a bit on the malnourished side. Eating disorder, maybe? Or perhaps she just couldn't afford enough food. That wasn't good. Psychics had a higher rate of metabolism than most people that related to the fact that they burned off more energy fueling their gifts. "You want it?" he asked and inched the plate closer towards her. She bit her full lower lip uncharacteristically, and he could see the struggle in her eyes an instant before she pushed it back. "No thanks," she smiled, "If I want one, I'll get my own." Her shrug was casual, as she dropped back in her chair, affecting a more relaxed pose.

"Okay," Jason shrugged his slender shoulders and began using the side of his fork to cut off bite-sized pieces of strudel. "Suit yourself."

Taylor gave him a wan smirk and replied, "I usually do."

After a few thoughtful bites where Taylor calmly sipped her tea, waiting, Jason realized he had yet to broach the subject he had originally wanted to speak with her about. "Mm, sorry," he put down his fork, "That was rude of me. Anyway, I've been thinking about what you said."

"Mm-hm?" A darkened eyebrow, sort of a brownish-red or maybe a reddish-brown, raised up like a flag.

"Division really is tailing me, aren't they?" Jason blurted out, almost in awe of the thought that he was worth so much to them.

Taylor snorted rudely through her nose and calmly replied, "Duh. I told you that."

He shook his head back and forth, blonde hair sliding messily in front of his eyes. "Jesus. That's so weird to think about," he admitted out loud and the young Shadow across from him sighed, her countenance shifting into an indulgent half-smile.

"You're a valuable commodity, Jason," she told him, "Your skills as a Reader have the potential to eclipse your mother's. To be frank, your ability quotient runs almost parallel to your aunt's, except you have the self-control to not let it overwhelm you."

"How do you know that?" Jay questioned her as he touched his coffee for the first time that afternoon, taking a tentative sip and then a large gulp upon discovering that it wasn't hot enough to scald anymore.

Taylor looked at him askance with her head cocked to the side. "You wouldn't be our only source at Division. We took our time researching you when we found out how interested they were. Your aunt's still alive, you know, drugged up and locked down in some Division cell. She has multiple suicide attempts noted in her file, so they keep her carefully Lithium'd nowadays. Sad."

At that shocking bit of news, Jay felt his jaw drop. "What? She… My mother; does my mother know?"

The redheaded girl shrugged once more. "I don't know. She might. If she does, she doesn't seem to care. Your mother has a tendency to keep to herself. Our informants have no idea what her personal opinions are on anything."

Jay laughed derisively. "Yes, that's definitely my mother. Eighteen years living with the woman and I barely know her myself."

The Shadow was silent for a moment, seeming just to take him in with her eyes, and then her expression turned sad. "I'm sorry to hear that. I was never close with my parents either, so I understand how that hurts and yet…doesn't at the same time. You don't know anything but that, so it's hard to mourn something that never existed in the first place, but it always made me sad when I watched my friends with their parents. It was like seeing a little slice of cake I couldn't have, and I like cake; you understand what I mean?"

His head bobbed up and down as a small smirk lit up his face, and they left it at that.

"So you realized I was telling the truth about the Division Watchers," Taylor stated, putting the conversation back on track neatly, "Now what?"

"That's the question," Jason replied, "Do I run and hide, or…?"

"Or…?"

"…Is my aunt really still in Division?"

In the end, it turned out there weren't any options at all. He couldn't just leave his aunt, even a woman he'd never met before, in such a place and it wasn't like he had much else to look forward to in life. A life on the run or a life playing James Bond? Hm, tough choice. Jay went to Division and once a month he made a drop which someone picked up. Every few months, Taylor showed up out of nowhere and they would trade information over coffee or dinner in various locations. Nine months passed like that. Jason stopped going home, stopped having meaningless conversations with Kara; Division provided apartments for their agents in training close to the office, so there was no reason to share an icy domicile with his distant mother.

He didn't have a home anymore, just a chance to change the world and an annoying redheaded girl who kept prodding him to try and make a difference.

* * *

TBC…


	2. Part Two

Home Is A Distant Dream

Part Two

Fandom: Push

Pairing: omc/ofc

Rating: T

Warnings: references to statutory rape, non-graphic references to sex

Archive: Ask

Author: Lily Zen

Notes: Okay, so here it is: the final part of this little trip into OC-land. I hope you like it.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Except for what is.

* * *

Taylor O'Rourke had lived a privileged life filled with emotionally distant parents, not unlike Jason Walsh. She'd had the best clothes, gone to the best schools, and never wanted for anything except genuine affection. Her parents were both socialites from well-to-do families, and among their circle of constituents the nannies took on the job of raising the children. However, Taylor really didn't mind that. After all, she had never known anything else was possible.

(She wouldn't until she was sixteen and on the run, until she meets a twenty-six year old Taker and his son in one of the Resistance safe houses, and has a moment of epiphany.)

In the sixth grade, Taylor went away to boarding school in France, and she got the best grades and had the most popular friends and all of her teachers called her gifted. Little did they know just how much; no one did until Division showed up one Christmas break while she was at home. The two men went into the parlor with her mother and father, and they talked for a long time. When they came out, her parents looked pale and shaken, and when they looked at her it was with something like disgust in their eyes.

That summer Taylor's parents sent her to a school for gifted children where they made her take odd tests all day long and scribbled things on paper that she didn't understand. Toward the end of the program, one of the younger employees at the school explained to Taylor that she was something called a double-recessive psychic, meaning that both of her parents had this hidden gene and they had manifested in her. In short, she was the first psychic her family had produced in probably about three or four generations. They called her a Shadow and said that was why she was so good at remaining unnoticed. Their eyes looked greedy when they talked about something called an ability quotient and the young girl had the sudden sense of sinking like a stone in a pond.

They didn't try to lock her up then, but she could see the caution in her parents' eyes whenever they were in the room long enough for her to get a look at them. Taylor went back to boarding school, but every summer after that her parents sent her to the Division school.

It wasn't until she was fifteen that Division finally convinced her parents she was a threat to them. Not like that was too terribly hard to do. Her parents were very concerned with appearances and Taylor was…imperfect, flawed. They were the type of people who disliked messes, and it was simply better to sweep her under the rug rather than deal with what she represented: a blemish on their lineage.

Like most fifteen year olds, Taylor had entered a rebellious phase that came equipped with punk clothes, dark make-up, and angst-ridden poetry, greatly displeasing her high-society parental figures, and it was just the thing that Division needed to tip the scales in their favor. She heard their car pull up in the driveway and watched them come in the house from the second story window, concentrating hard and using all her might to force her Shadowing to the fullest extent she'd managed to achieve so far.

She was so quiet as she crept down the stairs to eavesdrop at the parlor door, hardly a squeak on the floor, trying hard to recall all the spots in the house that would creak under her weight. When her parents agreed that she was acting differently and that it probably was in her best interest to take her away for awhile—to recuperate, of course—Taylor knew she had to run. She had heard enough about Division from the other kids at the school to know that if she disappeared into the bowels of the government-run program, she was never coming back out unless she was collared and leashed with some agent holding the other end.

Her father kept emergency cash, a few hundred dollars, in the copy of War & Peace that he kept on his bookshelf. Sliding down the hallway to the office, Taylor snatched the roll of cash and stuffed it in her jeans pocket and then she ran. The back door was one of those newer, lightweight ones. It hardly made a sound when she opened it, just a whisper of rubber tubing across the wood floor, and it shut just as quietly so long as you kept the handle turned. Otherwise the small click of the inner latch falling into place sounded rather loud in their huge, sparse home.

There wasn't time to take anything else but the clothes on her back. Taylor was deeply reluctant to try her luck at creeping back up the stairs and packing a bag, taking mementos of her life with her. A strange feeling, a tension in her gut told her that if she allowed herself to do so that she would be blowing her only slim chance at escape. They would corner her and take her by force if necessary.

So out the back door she went, running across the expansive, manicured lawn, and sliding through the gap in the fence to the neighbor's on the other block, still Shadowing as hard as she could, heart pounding frantically. The grass was wet from when it rained early that morning and she struggled not to slip, but still she kept running across the street and into the woods, snapping twigs and crunching over leaves like the hounds of the Wild Hunt themselves were after her.

They would know that she was gone soon and then they would begin to hunt her down like a game-fox. The irony wasn't lost on her that her hair was a similar flame-red to a fox's fur.

Fear made her legs stretch farther as she aimed for the far side of the woods where she would come out near the public elementary school. There were bus stops there, and if she was lucky one might pull up, otherwise she'd have to keep on running through the sub-divisions toward downtown. Mind whirling, Taylor failed to notice a slight dip in the ground in front of her and she miss-stepped, slipping on a soft pile of wet leaves and rolling her ankle beneath her. "Fuck!" she hissed as she hit the ground awkwardly. Her hands chilling on the damp ground, Taylor forced herself to her feet again and tested her weight on her ankle. At the very least, she had broken a few blood vessels, but the sharp-shooting pain in her ankle bones told her it was very likely a sprain. Soon it would begin to bruise and swell, and she would lose mobility and right at that moment, Taylor could not afford to be hampered by a bum ankle. Her only thought was that she needed to keep running, and so that was exactly what she did, forcing herself to move and ignore the pain of it. The consistency, the pattern of the pain became white noise, like the rhythm of her footfalls and her stuttered breath.

Panting, lungs screaming, ankle burning with a pain that contrasted to the cold bite of the air in her throat, Taylor broke from the woods at the school and jogged to the bus-stop, knowing that if she stopped moving entirely that the pain in her twisted ankle would really start to become noticeable. It was recess and she ignored the looks that the children gave her as she made it to the curb.

"Hey!" someone called, jumping out of a van, "Hey, over here!"

A quick glance showed an older woman jogging towards her and Taylor reeled about in panic, breaking out into a run again. It was entirely possible that Division had known she would run and had placed agents in her path ahead of time.

"Wait!" the woman cried and a hand closed over Taylor's wrist, tugging her backwards. The redheaded girl turned and swung a fist at the woman, shouting, "Let go!"

"Ow!" the woman yelped when Taylor hit her and leaped back to cradle her face. Two men spilled out of the van.

"Hey, hey," one of them, a man with a bushy beard, tried cajoling her, "We just want to talk."

"It's okay, Taylor, we're friends," the other one added.

"No!" Taylor shouted as their hands came down on her. She tried to run, to break free from them, but they were larger and stronger than her, easily overpowering a fifteen year old girl. One of them pinned her arms to her sides and the other shoved a needle into her, probably rougher than he'd intended to because she was still struggling violently as they lifted her, "No, no! You can't take me! Help! Help…"

Her voice slurred as they tucked her into the back of a blue mini-van and her eyelids suddenly weighed a metric ton each. "Shit…" she whispered harshly as she faded away from consciousness.

"It's okay. You'll be okay," she heard a woman's voice say, and that was the last thing she took note of for some time.

When her eyes opened again, Taylor took the time to glance at the three adults through her eyelashes, making it look like she was still asleep. They were in a different vehicle now. The interior of the mini-van had been gray. The inside of this car was tan. Going solely by shape, Taylor guessed that they were in an SUV or truck of some kind. The woman was on the bench seat in front of her with an ice-pack held to her cheek. She seemed small, and her blonde bob cut was shot through with strands of gray. Taylor almost felt bad for hitting someone's grandma, except the neat haircut reminded her of her own bitch of a grandmother and the anger that thought inspired kept her from feeling any guilt at all.

The two men were in the front. One of them was muscular and younger looking, maybe mid-thirties, with close-cut brown hair, and the other was older with a scruffy beard and reminded her of a lumberjack. They didn't look neat or professional, so in short they didn't look like Division. Taylor didn't know whether to be relieved or scared in a whole new way.

"She's been out for awhile," the muscular man, who was driving, stated, "You don't think we gave her too much, do you?"

The woman spoke up then. "She'll be fine."

"When do you think she's going to wake up?"

"She already is awake," the blonde woman replied and suddenly Taylor's heart was beating up somewhere in her throat. The woman turned and gazed down on her with watery blue eyes. She tried to smile in what she must have meant as reassurance, but all Taylor felt was fear as the woman's thin lips, painted with a light pink color, pulled away from small, white teeth, and the papery skin around her mouth stretched, deepening the laugh lines on her face.

"Who the fuck are you people?" the girl growled, "Where are you taking me?"

The older woman sighed. "Taylor—"

"How the fuck do you know my name?" The redhead bit out, interrupting her, "You better pull over and let me out right now. My parents…my parents know I'm gone. I'll bet they already called the cops."

"_Taylor_," the blonde woman said, cutting off the words that were beginning to flow forth in a slightly hysterical fashion, "They're not going to bring in police, not when they were planning on handing you over to a government agency that doesn't officially exist. Division will handle your case." Of course. Of course Division would handle her case, and if Taylor had been in her right mind at all, her logical brain would have deduced that on its own, but…

"How do you know that?" Taylor asked suspiciously, green eyes narrowed.

The woman shot her a half-hearted grin. "My name is Noreen. I'm a Watcher, though I don't work for Division, so please, relax. The man driving our vehicle is David and our navigator is Lucius. We're here to make sure you're safe."

"Safe?" the teenager echoed suspiciously, and used her arms to push herself off of the bench seat so that her upper body was levered. The action put her closer to being eye level with Noreen, but as she shifted, the motion put pressure on her ankle. She must have visibly winced because the next thing she knew, Noreen was handing her an instant cold compress.

"For your ankle, dear," the older woman said, nodding decisively at the no-doubt bruised and swelled portion of her body. Taylor followed the instructions, crunching the bag so that it began to manufacture its temporary cooling effect, and carefully placed it over her ankle, trying not to jostle the offending limb too much as she sat up straighter. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," Noreen intoned, "We hate Division, and right now Division is quite inconvenienced by you, so naturally we want to protect you."

Surprisingly, Taylor believed her. Head bobbing up and down, she accepted Noreen's words at face value and quietly watched as they drove past a few highway exit signs that she didn't recognize, feeling her panic slip away into a tenuous calm. She would question them some more later, when they were ensconced in someone's home in some city she'd never been too before, and they would sway her to stay with them, to stay with the Division Resistance Movement in hiding and utilize her gift to protect not only herself, but others as well.

* * *

They asked her to make contact with a young Reader in Chicago, so Taylor transferred to a safe-house there where they already had a Shadow stationed. That way she could come and go freely without leaving the house unprotected. That was, for the most part, the duty that the Resistance Shadows were assigned: keeping the civilians safe.

She'd done it very well for almost four years.

Her first year with the Resistance had been spent in hiding as one of the civilians, but Taylor had soon grown restless with that. Tom, a Taker, one of the sub-categories of nulls, the young father who'd lived with his five year old son at the safe-house in Texas for awhile, he'd been her first lover and it was during one of their long, rambling post-coitus conversations that he had uncovered Taylor's dissatisfaction with the life she was being forced to live. Tom was a civilian at heart, not a fighter, but he had suggested to Taylor that she go to the house head and volunteer her services if she was so fidgety.

She hadn't looked back.

She'd never seen Tom again after she'd transferred to one of the safe houses in Georgia, but that was alright. Taylor was only sixteen at the time, and though she loved him, it wasn't the unending, all-consuming force she thought it should be. He had his son to take care of, and an affair with an under-aged girl was only going to get him into trouble. They had to sneak around as it was and she knew that Tom felt more than half-guilty for taking her virginity, for sleeping with a girl who was young enough to have been one of his little sister's friends.

Working as a Shadow for the Resistance, Taylor had been all over the place: various states, Canada, Russia, the U.K., Germany, France…the list went on and on. Sometimes she only stayed for a few weeks, sometimes for months. It depended on where her skills were needed the most and she didn't always just Shadow the civilians. Occasionally, she went out on strike-team missions with the other fighters. She was a powerful Shadow, an alpha-level, useful to have when trying to go up against Division sections using only guerrilla tactics. After those jobs, she always had to be relocated.

She grew harder and colder with each passing year, forcibly shaking off the habits and mannerisms that had once marked her as one of the elite among society, until she was just a girl in torn denim with jaded eyes that had seen too much. It suited her better, this wild thing, than the trappings of society ever had.

Jason was a special case. Taylor transferred to Chicago with the specific intent to find him and make contact on behalf of the Resistance. Division had a real hard-on for him, had been keeping tabs on him through his mother for the duration of his life, since it was confirmed that he had an ability. Even now they had Watchers keeping their inner eyes turned to him to try and guess what his answer would be to their job offer. It was imperative, Noreen said, that they reach him before he made a decision. He was at a crucial point in his life where it could go either way. Jason Walsh could end up on the run for the rest of his short life until Division found him and captured him 'for his own safety,' or he could end up being one of the true believers, psychics who worked for Division and saw no problems with what they were doing. He was at a point where the Resistance could sway him to their side.

It didn't matter what she believed or how she felt. Taylor knew this had to be done. One way or another, somebody was going to make use of Jason and his incredible power. He was doomed from the moment he was born into being somebody's tool, somebody's weapon…just like Taylor had been.

She felt bad for manipulating him; really, she did.

She didn't want to push him into anything, but she knew from experience how helpless against it you really were. There were few options here, none of them especially good, and if she had to fight dirty and use questionable methods to get her way, then so be it. Taylor wasn't very good at playing the part of idealistic revolutionary. She had tried to make some such speech to that effect, but her heart just hadn't been in it. The facts were that they, the free psychics, were on their own, backed into a corner. The only options left were fight or die.

Taylor was going down fighting.

So she used every dirty trick in the book, starting with an awkward introduction, minor flirting, the lesser-of-two-evils schtick, poking at his ego, and even the ace up her sleeve, her information about Jason's aunt still being alive and well, locked up in Division. The sympathy was genuine though. She did feel sorry for him.

Maybe that was why she kept coming back even though she knew that, as his contact, she should limit their interactions to the drop off and retrieval point, never a face-to-face. That was risky. What if he went back to the Division training center and thought of her while his guard was down? They'd be doomed. What if a Sniff caught the faintest remnants of her on his shirt or pants?

Jay said he kept certain clothes that he only wore when he was doing the information drops, that he hid them in the bottom of his closet the rest of the time, but Taylor couldn't know that for sure. She couldn't know that he wouldn't get caught.

It took her three months until she admitted to herself that she was worried about him and another two until it finally broadsided her that she liked him. Like…_liked him_ liked him.

Which was dangerous.

Taylor was his handler. She couldn't afford to get emotionally attached to Jason. Except he'd wormed his way in and wouldn't be dislodged no matter what she did.

She kissed him a month later in a dirty greasy-spoon diner, much to her chagrin.

They had been talking about the things he saw at Division, the things they made him do, and he told her about his scary-ass partner that he'd met the week before and how they were sending them out as soon as he officially graduated the training program next week on some mission to chase down a Pusher that Division wanted back.

He'd laughed and said, "I guess it's some sort of initiation rite, because nobody can manage to catch her. So they give the assignment to the newest recruits, trading it off between the youngest team members." There wasn't anything particularly significant about the moment, nothing profound or heartfelt. It was just Jason being Jason, eighteen going on nineteen, soon to be turning thirty-something once he started working in the field and seeing what he'd really been training for all this time.

And Taylor had looked up at that cute little grin and felt something inside of her break, a barrier that she'd erected a long time ago to keep people out. She had a moment to think to herself clearly, 'I'm going to kiss him now,' and less than a second of looking at Jason's shocked face, obviously having heard what she'd thought. Then she was leaning over the table between them, reaching out and grabbing his shirt—a soft gray sweater that she was fairly certain she'd seen before—in her hand with its chipped black nail polish and practical, short nails. She tugged him forwards a little bit until he rose the slightest amount, and Taylor's mouth crashed into his brusquely.

In that scant moment of contact, her mind hurriedly tried to catalogue whatever it could about the situation—scent, feel, taste—but all she could come up with was 'good.' It was good.

She and Jason stared at each other from a centimeter apart, and then Jason blushed and grinned. "Wow," he said, "I'm glad I'm not the only one who's been thinking about that."

Taylor laughed and slid back into her seat, spine limp with relief.

* * *

She was pacing back and forth in the cheap motel room, waiting anxiously for the polite knock on the door. Jason was late and she was beginning to seriously stress about it. Okay, so it wasn't incredibly late yet. Thirty minutes going on forty and maybe he just hit some bad traffic or had some extra shit to take care of in L.A. for Division.

Except it was time for their regularly scheduled meet and goddamn, he was lucky that she was one of the few people in the Resistance who had free range of movement. Taylor could sit right next to a Division Sniff and they wouldn't have a clue what she was, and she didn't mind so much traveling from place to place in order to keep in contact with Jason.

He had an e-mail account on one of those free sites, as did she, and she pulled out her cell phone now and used it to send him a quick one-liner saying, 'Where the hell r u?' It would get redirected to his cell phone as a notification that he had a new e-mail. From there he'd have to use his phone to go on the internet and sign into the account. It was the safest way she'd been able to think of staying in contact with him. Too risky to give him a burn phone, because what if Rob went looking in his things and found it?

That wouldn't be good, not for him or for her.

Fifteen minutes later she still hadn't gotten a response and Taylor was pretty convinced that he'd been caught, that Division was on their way to the hotel, that she was going to get bagged and tagged like other psychics. She was about to split when a knock sounded on the door—polite and steady—and Taylor flattened herself against the wall, crouching in case they started firing.

"It's me," Jay called through the door and she deflated in relief. Two quick, bounding steps later, she was flinging open the door and catching him in her arms, dragging him inside the room. Jason kicked the door shut with his heel and spun her until she was pressed up against the wall next to it.

Their kiss was tinged with desperation and heady relief that once again they'd outsmarted Division right under their noses, that once more they were reunited. "You're okay," Taylor breathed when they released each other's lips, "What happened?" She punched his arm lightly, payback for making her worry.

Jason just nuzzled her way through her hair, worn loose and brushed smooth that night until it hung straight and shiny, a curtain of fox-red that smelled like something green and herbal. "I had to take Rob to the E.R. The Watcher we were talking to got pissed off at him and broke his nose," he murmured into the skin behind her ear. He kissed the curve of her cartilage and pulled back enough that she could see his smile. "It was pretty funny."

Taylor rolled her eyes at him and backed him up so that she could turn and lock the motel room door. "So?" she prompted and went to go sit on the single motel room bed cross-legged.

"So," Jason followed her and sat back against the cheap headboard bolted to the wall, his legs spread out in front of him. She'd noticed that he'd grown in the nine months since they'd first met. Just a few inches in height, topping out around five-eight, filling out a little through the chest and shoulders; she had an inkling that Jay was going through his last growth spurt. He might make it another couple inches, he might gain a little more muscle mass, but Taylor had a feeling that he'd always be more prone to a lean body than to the hulking mass of some men. She didn't mind that. She liked that he didn't make her feel small and child-like, even though she was only five-five and one-hundred-ten pounds soaking wet.

She had a feeling that if she had more money and more time to take better care of herself, Taylor would probably gain a little weight, get some of those curves back that she'd had at fifteen. But all Taylor had was a small monthly stipend from the Resistance and the constant need to keep moving. Her alpha-level Shadowing required too much food to fuel it and keep enough to give her body a proper pair of breasts and hips. If it was a choice between a steak dinner and a plane ticket, guess which one she was choosing.

Jason reached out wrapped his arms around her waist, spreading his legs and pulling her back against his chest. She went willingly, letting his body cradle hers in a way that was almost too comforting. Sometimes she forgot why they were there when he held her like that, forgot who they were and how they'd met, and what they were doing entirely. She forgot that she was supposed to be a professional agent for change and that Jason was supposed to be her inside source to the movements of the enemy. It became less about Division and the greater good, the cause they were fighting for, and more about being teenagers in love, banding together in a way that was almost Romeo and Juliet-esque with the forces of the world trying to keep them apart.

With a Herculean amount of effort, Taylor got herself back on track enough to ask, "So what's the scoop?"

She felt Jason shrug behind her and his fingers glided over her stomach through her tee shirt. It made her shiver as something hot and needy began to slither through her stomach. "The scoop is that Rob is doped up on enough pain-killers to make an elephant collapse, and I sincerely doubt he'll notice my absence at all, so I'm pretty sure it would be okay if I stayed a little longer tonight." One of his hands came up and swept away the hair covering her neck, and then his lips touched her sensitive skin. He murmured against her, "And, oh yeah, we're going to Australia as soon as Rob is feeling better."

"Austrlia?" she yelped, twisting around in the vee of his legs to stare incredulously, "Why?"

Jason shrugged and his warm, chocolate colored eyes lingered on the genuine shock in her face. "Kira. Why else? We talked to her ex-boyfriend, but all he had to say was that she'd always wanted to see Australia. Rob figured it's as good a place as any to chase down this wild goose."

Taylor was well-versed on the subject of Kira Hollis, the legendary Pusher who had survived the R-16 trials intact, escaped from Division with a sample of the drug, and managed to stay free. It was imperative that she remain that way because otherwise with her Division had the key to beginning mass-production of hyped-up psychic soldiers. The true believers could Push the others into thinking they believed also, then they could perfect the drug and administer it to the rest of the captives. It would be pandemonium; it would be open-season on psychics around the world. No one would be safe.

Not to mention the political ramifications it would have. Governments would begin fighting each other for control, wars would be started, and those soldiers on the front lines would be, of course, psychics. Not to mention the use of psychics becoming standard in government positions. Imagine a world where you could tell no lies, have no thoughts of your own. Eventually the world as a whole would move toward totalitarian government under the disguise of doing what's best for the people, using psychic abilities to control the masses. Atrocities were committed all over the globe as it was—it was a proven fact that humans were horrible to each other—and that was without the aid of super-powerful human beings that use their minds to make things happen. What if the President's advisors became Pushers? They could pass whatever policies they wished, enforce their will, Division's will, on Congressman and even on the President himself. It would be the beginning of Armageddon, and it all started with Kira Hollis being captured by Division.

Jason hesitated, then said, "I thought this was good."

"No," Taylor shot back, "You can't catch Kira. We've been through this."

Jay sighed, resting his chin on Taylor's shoulder. "I know. We're not going to. Nobody can catch Kira. It's just until they get bored with us hitting dead ends, then we'll get reassigned and somebody else will take over the investigation. I just thought, well, it's better to keep my cover if I act like I'm willing to pursue all possible leads. Rob might get suspicious otherwise. So we'll go to Australia, bum around for awhile, and then we'll probably get pulled for wasting Division resources." He shrugged.

Taylor remained stubbornly silent, even though she knew he was right about everything. They'd taught him well, herself and Division both, and she despaired at seeing him lose chunks of his innocence to them both. Now she finally understood the conflict Tom must have faced every time he touched her, feeling like he was taking something irreplaceable from her and yet helpless in the face of his own want for her.

She wanted Jason.

She wanted Jason badly enough that she was willing to risk everything, her life and his, to have him even for a few stolen moments at a time. It was ludicrous, suicidal even. Yet she didn't care, not enough to stop. Love was selfish that way.

"Don't be mad," Jason stated, his voice a little pleading as he rubbed his face against the bend where her neck and shoulder met, "I'm just doing what's got to be done."

"I know," she whispered and hated how it came out sounding rough and emotional, betraying herself. Jason must have heard it too, because a moment later he slid two fingers under her chin and used them to turn her face back to him. His lips touched hers, soft and persuasive, and her lips parted automatically, hungry and eager. His tongue crept into her mouth and the warmth, the affection she could feel in his kiss crept insidiously underneath her barriers.

She let him in with a quiet, resigned sigh and felt him smile. Jason liked to play in her mind, to Read her while he touched her and kissed her, and he knew that he could only do it if she chose to let him. It was a sign of her trust in him, she knew he knew that and properly appreciated it for that reason.

Hands slid up her rib cage and she turned slightly, wanting to be at a better angle since it seemed likely that this was about to go a whole lot further than just the one kiss. If she was honest with herself, that's why Taylor met him at motels now rather than the public places they favored in the beginning of their acquaintance. She wanted to be alone with him so that she could do intimate things to him, things that made him cry out and shake, and hold her afterwards, naked and sweaty, kissing her hair like he was thanking her for something.

His hands cupped her meager breasts and she moaned. He rubbed his thumbs over her cloth covered nipples and they stiffened. She was sure he could feel it even through the fabric of her bra and t-shirt.

She kissed him harder, pulling away to strip off her t-shirt and reveal her blue bra with its bright yellow lace and straps. She'd had it on the first day they met and the first time they had sex, and she knew it was his favorite for just that reason even though it wasn't really the sexiest thing she'd ever worn around him.

Almost an hour later, after Jay had made use of his talent for Reading to make her cry out in every way possible and fumble for his belt buckle, and take him into her; after they had both spent themselves in the best way possible, and they were lying under the scratchy motel coverlet, touching each other wordlessly and drinking in the silence—well, she was drinking in the silence, Jay was still in her head, calmly Reading every thought that flew his way—she spoke to him once again about leaving the country on a wild goose chase for a girl that wouldn't be caught.

"So, Australia?" she asked out loud and Jay nodded slowly, his chin sliding against the top of her head. Taylor sighed and knew she'd have to contact some friends in the Resistance. She'd need a raise if she was going out of the country, and goddammit, it was time anyway. Those fuckers owed her for guarding their asses night and day, and taking on this crazy job where she met Jason in the first place.

Jason chuckled at her thoughts and lowered his head to give her a chaste kiss. "Maybe we can have secret rendezvous sex on the beach," he offered with laughter in his voice.

Taylor sighed. "Maybe," she said, and she didn't bother to tell him out loud that she was already planning on it, that she was definitely going to Australia to make sure he was okay and that things went smoothly, because he already knew.

He knew she loved him and that she'd go wherever his insane mission took him because he was her home now and she wasn't losing that without a fight.

* * *

-FIN-


End file.
